Domestic Violence Inquiry Sought

The Los Angeles City Council called Wednesday for the Police Department to explain how it handles domestic violence calls after a city commission issued a preliminary report suggesting officers responding to calls are not making enough arrests.

LAPD officials, who were asked to appear before the council next Wednesday with a response, challenged the accuracy of the report by the Commission on the Status of Women.

The commission looked at domestic violence incidents from 2001 to 2003 and found a 3% rise in the number of calls citywide, but a 7% drop in the number of cases that resulted in crime reports and a 22% decrease in arrests in those kinds of cases.

The report also says the 77th Street, Southwest and Southeast divisions received the most domestic violence calls but ranked low in the number of calls that result in crime reports filed or arrests made.

Councilman Bernard C. Parks, a former police chief, said the report is troubling because it indicates officers may not be providing the same level of service to domestic violence victims in neighborhoods of South Los Angeles where the crime is most prevalent.

“Where we have the most violence ... the calls are coming in at a high volume,” but police “are not turning them into arrests and crime reports,” Parks said.

The department will develop an official response to the report for the council, according to the LAPD’s domestic violence coordinator, Det. Lorie Taylor.

Some of the statistics used by the commission are different from those found by the department, and the period looked at does not provide the most up-to-date picture of the issue, Taylor said.

She also said arrests were down in many crime categories during the period looked at by the commission and that many times officers responding to domestic violence calls could not make an arrest because the perpetrator had fled the scene.

Police officials deny that some areas of the city get different treatment from others.

The LAPD takes domestic violence crimes “very seriously,” Taylor said.

Paula Petrotta, the commission’s executive director, acknowledged that the data is incomplete. She said the lack of a centralized tracking system for domestic violence statistics makes it difficult to measure the department’s response and assess the situation. Petrotta said it does appear there is room for improvement, however.

Parks also voiced concern that the LAPD had reclassified many domestic violence cases so they were no longer included in the “aggravated assault” category.

LAPD officials said the reclassification was aimed at making department statistical reports consistent with federal crime reporting practices and had not resulted in officers treating domestic violence less seriously.